Our Newest Employee: Techathew Cruncherin, Google+ Maven

Earlier today, Google started banning brands who had signed up for Google+ profiles when they weren’t supposed to. Some were outraged by this, but the truth is that Google has said from the beginning that Google+ was meant for real people only for now, and that brand/company support would be coming. This is why TechCrunch hasn’t set up a Google+ account. Google asked us to wait. So, we waited.

In other words, they totally screwed us over. We sat around like idiots twiddling our thumbs while our competitors set up Google+ accounts for their news feeds. And in some cases, they gained tens of thousands — or hundreds of thousands of followers. As I’ve explained before, Google+ is already a meaningful driver of traffic to sites that utilize it. And the service continues to grow, seemingly by the millions, each day.

We’d be the first to admit that without Twitter’s SUL (suggested user list), we wouldn’t get nearly the traffic that we do from Twitter. And actually, when we were removed from the SUL (post-Twittergate), our numbers took a hit. Essentially, Google has just left us off their own SUL for Google+ by telling us we couldn’t make an account, while giving our competitors tons of traffic and followers, and then granting them amnesty for breaking the rules.

“Frankly, the entire thing is a mess,” Danny Sullivan writes. He goes on to further trash this jackassery here and here. In my view, it’s actually worse than jackassery.

So here’s what we’re gonna do. Make an account!

As per Google’s very, very clear rules, someone has to run it, so we’ve hired someone! Meet Techathew Cruncherin, our newest employee. He’s shy, so you may not see him around much, but he lives here at TechCrunch headquarters. Under a desk. He’s an awesome guy. And he lives for Google+. Loves it. Shares the shit out of our TechCrunch posts. It’s awesome.

So, do us (and yourselves) a favor and follow Techathew. He’ll regularly send out our best posts for you to read, comment, and enjoy.